J.- 10a.

50

[H. C. CAMERON,

217. Do you consider that reasonable?—l say that is a fair and reasonable profit. 218. Does any firm buy a higher quality of mutton than Eose and Co. ?—They buy the highest quality. They are a first-class firm. 219. Do you think you could establish a shop outside that fifty-mile radius, and secure the trade from Eose and Co. at sd. per pound ?—Yes, because if I have a shop in their district I have the preference given to me by the customers over any one trading in London who has to send the order down by rail. 220. In 1901 you said that if heavy shipments arrived in London they would reduce the price of our meat, and the heavy shipments have not done so?— That is quite true ; but I do not think I am the only one who has been found to be wrong. 221. Reference has been made by you frequently to the fact that the River Plate people sell their own meat as New Zealand. Is it not a fact that they sometimes buy New Zealand meat to supply it as their own ? —Certainly they do not. They buy New Zealand meat—the poorer class of New Zealand meat—to supply their shops with when they are out of River Plate meat;.but they do not sell it as River Plate meat. They sell it then as New Zealand; but they sell their own as New Zealand also in the retail trade. 222. I notice that your scheme must have been cabled Home, for in a Glasgow paper, dated the 23rd July, it is pointed out that the prices you name are slightly lower for New Zealand meat, and also emphasize the fact that this will have a tendency to lower the price at Home ?—That should be in favour of my estimate. I would like to say that it is the C. C. and D. Company's experience—and I have been told the same by agents, managers, and travellers going through the country —that there is greater difficulty in getting orders for New Zealand meat now than formerly in the Midlands and North of England. 223. Yet, the fact remains that New Zealand has almost doubled her exports of meat during the first six months of the present year, and no difficulty has been experienced in getting these high prices ?—That is so. 224. If there had been such a prospect of profits as you have tabulated here—as high as 48 per cent, for the third year—is it not remarkable that some of the people at Home have not gone in for this?— They have, and they have been making those profits. 225. I take it that your plan does not coincide with that Mr. Seddon cabled Home?— No. 226. Would you care about giving an opinion on Mr. Seddon's scheme ?—I do not think you ought to ask me that.

Tuesday, 22nd Septembee, 1903. H. C. Cameron, Produce Commissioner, further examined. (No. 8.) 1. The Chairman.] There is some variation in the evidence given on the 4th August, and I thought it as well to recall you. Do you remember, in dealing with the question of frozen meat going into the sorting-shed at Home, I said to you " Would you have all this meat that they land go into the sorting-shed, too?" In looking up your answer in the shorthand report you say " Yes," but in your correction of the transcript you have substituted " No." Would you like to have an opportunity of explaining why you altered your answer?—l said " Yes," but in looking over the report I noticed that my answer would include all the meat going Home in the Tyser boats direct to Nelson Bros., and that would be unnecessary in their case. 2. Was that in your first answer ? —The meat that goes into the sorting-shed is small lots for sorting purposes, and I altered that, because I took it that my answers would be based on that. I certainly did not intend to convey the impression that all meat that was already sorted should be handled for the purpose of passing it through the shed. There is no sorting required for the C. C. and D. Company's meat going Home in the Tyser boats. 3. I said, in one of my questions, "Very well. Should an enterprising company like the C. C. and D. Company suffer the infliction and the cost, risk, and delay of having to pass their meat through a sorting-shed at the docks ? " to which you replied, " I grant that it may seem rather hard." Then I asked, " What object is there in it? " and you answered, "The object is this: The welfare of the trade generally. Some one may possibly suffer from any alteration that is introduced in the trade." Is that not so? —I was referring to the C. C. and D. Company putting some portion of their meat in the sheds. They handle meat that comes from Wellington, I understand, and that meat belonging to the company would have to go through the sheds. All the C. C. and D. Company's meat that requires to be sorted and selected would require to be sorted in the sheds; but all meat coming direct to them and not requiring sorting would not require to go into the sheds. 4. That is not what is borne out by the whole construction of the evidence; and then you altered my subsequent question by putting the word " not " in ?—That is what I really understood you to mean. 5. After putting "No" for "Yes" you make my question dovetail into it by putting in a " not," which makes the whole of my subsequent question different to what it was intended to be? —That was the meaning I intended to convey. 6. Your intention is this, that it is only lots of meat other than those carried by the Tyser line that would have to be sorted in the sorting-sheds ?—Yes ; all lots requiring sorting should go in the shed. 7. Do you not say that all the meat that goes Home in the Tyser boats is their own ?—I cannot say that all is. 8. Your evidence is that the bulk of the meat going Home by the Tyser line for the C. C. and D. Company will not require to go into the sorting-shed?— Yes, as I understand it.